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Home»Totally off topic: About your small business site or blog, and getting it noticed - what not to do

Totally off topic: About your small business site or blog, and getting it noticed - what not to do

This has nothing at all to do with Japan, or food, or anything else that I normally write about here. But I am putting it on this site in the off chance that it will be read by regular folk. That is, people who just happened to land here, looking for a recipe perhaps. It's not for web designers or developers or people who built stuff for the web. And it's certainly not for so-called "SEO experts".

But I just couldn't take it anymore.

(What is SEO, you ask? It's an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. We'll get to that later.)

Why can I tell you about these things?

I am not an 'SEO expert', and I am no longer a web designer. So why listen to me?

I run two fairly successful blogs. They are both 'niche' blogs as they say in the website-creating world - they each concentrate on a fairly narrow topic. The one you are reading now, Just Hungry, mainly focuses on Japanese home cooking, though I do allow myself to stray from that topic a bit. It's about 80% Japanese food and Japan-related stuff, 20% other things, mostly of a personal nature. My other blog, JustBento has an even narrower focus: compact portable meals, aka bento boxes. I suppose neither topic is going to gather a huge audience, but I am very happy with the number of visitors I get on both.

Both have great positions on Google searches, for the terms that people are likely to use when looking for what's on them. If you search for 'bento recipes' for example, JustBento is at or near the top. If you search for 'Japanese home cooking' or 'Japanese recipes', the same applies for this site.

What's more, I built both of the sites myself. I am my own web designer, developer and SEO person. While I do get a wee bit of help from my husband (aka The Guy) he's not really a web person (he develops programs for other platforms, not browsers) so I do 99% of the brunt work. What's more, in my previous life, before I became a full time writer, I was a web designer. Heck, my Amazon Author Profile page may be the only one that lists a cookbook and a CSS/Javascript book! (Those are website-building-techie things, just in case.) At heart, I'm still a web geek. So I think I have a pretty good idea of what to do and what not to do.

Comment spam, aka inserting your site links into comments

Every day, I spend a good amount of time going through the comments on both sites. A large number of comments have links to other sites in them. Most such comments get flagged and dumped automatically by the blogging software. You can imagine what those are - links to sites selling v**gra, sex sites, hair loss treatments, dodgy diet pills, and the like. However, a number of other comments containing links to get through. Most such links are to what look like legitimate business sites. Recently there have been links to things like a site for a company that makes custom iron gates in Arizona, a doctor's office in California, and a furniture company in the UK. And there are always lots of links to 'web design company' sites and various blogs. All not related in any way to the subjects Just Hungry and JustBento cover. (Note: I do allow some links to be published if the subject is related; however, I don't allow blatant 'advertising' links. If you're posting about your Japanese learning site on an article about how to make tofu, that's advertising.)

I'm here to tell you, such links do not work. They do not work. If you hired a web designer or other 'expert' who told you they do work, they are lying to you, or they have no clue. There are no widely recognized, certified credentials needed to call onesself a 'web designer' or an 'SEO expert'. If you are getting charged for dodgy practices that are supposed to raise your site's visibility in the eyes of Google and other search engines, you may be getting ripped off.

Why don't comment links work? For one thing, sites such as mine that hold all comments in a moderation queue will not even publish them. So no one will get to see them.

"But", you may be saying, "there are plenty of other sites that do publish these comments". Well, if a site's comment section is neglected enough to allow all such links to pass through, your site link is probably mixed in with the ones for [insert popular medication name here] or fake [insert Swiss watch maker name here] watches and Hot [insert your favorite nationality/ethnicity/age here] Girls. It's like moving your storefront into the seediest part of town. Would you want your lovely custom staircase company next to a peep show parlor?

But some sites do a half-hearted job of screening the most obvious links, mainly with automated screening solutions, so the medical/x-rated stuff gets dumped. So then, you might think your link will get noticed by the search engines. Wrong! All modern blogging and content management systems (most blogs and many other sites are built using one of these) have a system where links in comments are automatically tagged like so:

rel="nofollow"

What that little tag means to search engines is that the link in question should not be 'voted up', so to speak. Google rankings are largely based on how many incoming links there are to a site for a particular search term, so 'link juice' as its called, legitimate links from other sites to your, are very valuable. But if all your comment-links get tagged with that nofollow, it's useless.

Morever, savvy internet users are absolutely sick and tired of internet spam, whether it's in their email, their Twitter streams, or on the websites they read. So if they see your site linked to in such a manner, they are both very likely to even click on it, and to think much the worse of you.

I know that it's very hard to get attention on the web, and how anxious you might be to get noticed. But there's a wrong way and a right way. Don't waste your time and money doing it the wrong way.

A couple of more don'ts besides comment spamming

Do not write to an established blog (or other site) asking for a 'linkback' or 'link exchange'. I hate those and most other blog owners do too. If we really like your site organically, we may link to you, but if you push it we will ignore you. (This may sound arrogant, but it's the truth.)

A recent tactic is asking if you can write a guest post for a site, in which you will include links to your site. You should check first to see if the site you're writing to even accepts guest posts. (Mine do not, unless I put out a specific call for them - and the last time I did that was on JustBento about 3 years ago. Just Hungry has never had a guest post.) Morever, if your site's subject matter is totally unrelated to the site you're writing to, forget it. (A warning for new blog owners: be very wary of accepting such 'guest post' requests. The requester is only in it for the link juice.)

A very short list of the right ways to do it

In closing, here's just a very short list of the right ways to get more attention:

Make sure your site is clear about what it is selling/what the subject matter is. This information should be in text, and displayed prominently on your site.

The most important page on your site is the home or front page. If you have a flashy Flash 'entry page' that has not been appropriately text-optimized, you are making your site harder to find. If your web designer proposes a Flash- or graphic-only entry page, fire them. (I'm talking to you, restaurant site owners!)

A site that is frequently updated has a better chance to get search engine attention. If you have the time, incorporating a blog on your site, that you update regularly, can be a way to fairly painlessly keep your site fresh.

Making comments on other blogs can work - but make sure you are making relevant comments not just there to plug your site/blog. Then, casually include a link to your site. If it looks like you know what you are talking about, and the subject matter of your site is somehow related the site where you're commenting, chances are you will get more eyeballs on your site from that.

So, that's it for this special announcement. Now back to your regular programming in the next post!

Addendum: For food bloggers (or any blogger), especially if you are just starting out

Food Blog Alliance is a site by and for food bloggers, about the ins and outs of running a food theme blog. The articles are written by experienced food bloggers, some who have have had successful, even profitable, food blogs for years. There are plenty of tips there that pertain to general blogging too, so it's well worth checking out. (I have a couple of articles there: Startup costs for a food blog is a bit outdated but still viable, and Welcome visitors to your blog with an About page is still pertinent.)

(A bit of history: Back when I was a working web designers, I used to use Just Hungry to test out various search engine theories and such. Some worked, some definitely did not. It was very educational to see how things worked in on a real, live site. But now that Just Hungry is an important part of my writing business, it's no longer an SEO guinea pig.)

Comments

Nice summary for folks needing to learn to deal with this stuff. I would also warn folks about selling links. By the way, this comment has triggered your anti-spam thing several times. I'll now try submitting it without a link to my site (a cooking one...)

Informative post here Maki. I would generally agree, except the one point regarding updating the blog regularly. I've been to a lot of blogs, which only get updated once a month, and they manage to keep me engaged. Whereas, there are some which are updated regularly, but would totally turned me off due to the non-content. So, I guess what I'm saying is, great to update regularly, but it's gotta be of quality content, right?

Awesome! Thanks for the tips! I've been debating starting a blog on blogspot but the over saturation of blogs makes me hesitate. As a recent college grad I feel at a loss with what to do with all of my spare time (as opposed to the good ol' college days where every single minute was booked), so I'll probably take a shot at it and see where it goes. :)
I should start reading your bento site since I pack a lunch every day.

In my world we'd call you the Subject Matter Expert. Thanks for the tips, I think it is really hard to create a small business or really get noticed unless you do some ground work into the world. I know it's taken me a bit to even get someone to let me take pictures of them for free!

Once again thanks for those tips! That was something I really needed to read! I'll keep this information for sure.

Thank you so much for this post! I help my husband maintain his business website, and we often argue over the best way to get higher rankings. I've taught myself what little SEO I know, so I'm glad to know I'm doing things "right." I'll have to check out Search Engine Watch - it looks like a very good resource to have.

Thank you for your prudent advice. As I read your suggestions of do's & dont's I happen to be sitting in my car about to head to a meeting with a web designer and social media consultant. I'm taking on the project of redesigning my site this year since it was built for me 6 yes ago by a friend who's a computer programmer and is now a dinosaur. Lots to learn so thanks for the info!

Off topic yet completely interesting to me. My blog has been ramping up in readership fairly well over the last year, at least by my modest standards, and I'm definitely champing at the bit to see some really big gains this year in hits (and tiny increases of ad revenue) and the timing of this post couldn't be better. I really need to take these lessons to heart to avoid being too spammy.

I've actually had a couple of guest posts, but only by personal friends, who happen to not have any interest in food blogging on their own per se, so I will add that as a tiny tiny exception to the rule.

Brian, guest posts from people you know are totally different matter. (Come to think of it I think I do have a couple of guest posts on here from family members.) And if you have another blogger you know, and you are familar with their blog, having a guest post from them can be a terrific way for your readers to get to know them, and vice versa. I'm talking about totally unsolicited guest post offers from strangers. A typical offer says something like 'I will write fresh original content for your blog for free! All I want in return is to be able to link to my site...' etc. And then invariably the sites they want to link to are for stuff like car insurance or 'top diet tips' or something. Avoid accepting those types of guest posts, they'll give your blog cooties.

Indeed, I was agreeing with you! I haven't yet received a scarily out of nowhere guest blogging request. But with your article in mind, I shall not be horribly flattered and get myself into something I rather not!

I happened on this blog to look up a zucchini miso soup (which I found and will try making, thank you). I have a food blog and am not interested in SEO although it is obviously gratifying to get new followers and readers. I get enough readers to satisfy me without linking to my blog in a comment section etc. I recently have started getting some comments that I think are spam but seem to be personalized and mention the content of my blog. I wonder if it is spam or not? I haven't set up a spam detectore because I hadn't really gotten spam yet. Thanks for the informative post.

If the links in the comment seem to be totally off the wall, chances are the comment is spam. What some bloggers do when they get comments that seem to be talking about your blog content, but contain funny links, is to edit out the links and leave the comment. This thwarts any spammy intentions, and you still have a nice comment. I don't do this on my sites because, well, I can't be bothered. ^_^

Thank you for this! I just started a food-related blog last month as a reason to write everyday. My former blog, which I sadly neglected, became over-run with spam comments (THOUSANDS)and Google became upset with me. I laughed out loud at your descriptions of the types of links that end up showing up. Thank you for this information. Webmaster tools at Google has a lot of info about blocking bots from your site as well.

On a note related to your blog, I visit often. I lived in Japan for 4 years and every time I get an longing, your recipes have helped immensely! Thank you!
--April

Thank you so much for this post. I am new to the food blogging/website world (in fact am also building my site on my own without the techie background) and so appreciate your straightforwardness and suggestions. It's both very helpful and nice. Again, thank you.

I actually just stumbled upon your blog because I searched for "easy miso soup" and decided to explore a bit further. Love your blog! My fiance and I have been trying to cook more Japanese food at home lately, so we'll definitely be back for more recipes!

Hi Marion. I think these days, you are most likely to be able to live in different countries if you do one of the following, in no particular order:

1. work in the banking/financial industry
2. be an English teacher
3. do missionary work
4. work for the government (including being in the military)
5. for for a multinational corporation, esp. with specialized skills (e.g. computer science -- for instance Google has offices worldwide)

Welcome to Just Hungry, where we serve authentic Japanese recipes and more! I'm Makiko (Maki). →